Category Archives: general

After the self-made Geiger Müller counter and the associated experiments, I noticed that there is one or the other radioactive element in our environment.

With the SOEKS 01M Geiger counter, an industrially manufactured device, I have now again “scanned” objects in the area.

SOEKS 01M

Again, I realized that some of the old clocks in my collection are equipped with radium-painted dials. The SOEKS shows here a radiation exposure of about 1.11 microSievert per hour. The environmental load is displayed at approx. 0.14 uSv / h.

But in my mother’s kitchen, I found a beautiful, colorful old vase that displayed about 10uSv / h. (The thing is now in the far corner of the cellar).

It should be uranium paint. (To see orange / red painting in the video below)

In the last two days we received a visit from two young gentlemen from the fourth year of the Villach High School Sankt Martin. Mr. Martin Ungermanns and Mr. Fabian Treu came to us as part of a “taster program” of the middle schools. The two students can participate in the “world of work” and get some insights into the technology.

deepened in the soldering work

The program included work such as assembling and soldering of electronic kits (the well-known shaker cube), a small series work (flashing of PIC microcontrollers), exposure and etching of circuit boards, milling of aluminum plates.

As conclusion of the two taster days both high school students were allowed to build up a complete “device”.

Martin Ungermanns and Fabian Treu

It was a “clap switch kit” that detects a loud sound event via an acoustic sensor and then turns on a relay contact. So that this circuit can also be used meaningfully, the circuit has been extended by a self-made power supply, all installed in a plastic housing and equipped with power cable and Schuko coupling. So any consumer (eg a floor lamp, TV) can be switched on and off with this switchgear by simply “clapping” …

… or in short words, too much current flows through a too thin wire, then it can get very hot. How that looks then, you can see very well in the picture. The insulation of the 1.5 mm² stranded wire has completely dissolved in smoke here in the area of ​​the terminal …
So you should not use this plug-in connection;)

Slowly, it is time to archive all the tech stuff you have to deal with on a daily basis and always had to do before, in a blog. Above all, when I’m in my parents’ house, I always find interesting things from my childhood and adolescence …
And since you are always on the move with a mobile office (ie a smartphone) anyway, you can try to capture these things … let’s see how far that works. The information here on the blog merely represents an ‘archival’ of small projects and events I’ve dealt with over time.Remark: This is NOT a scientifically edited blog.

Incidentally, the picture here shows a small project with an old oscilloscope tube (Braun tube), which I wanted to bring back to life … more information will be available later.